Australian Open officers are bracing for the embattled match’s largest blow but, with an harm scare for main draw-card Novak Djokovic including to a bunch of high-profile gamers pulling out.
The controversial Serbian star has dominated headlines since touchdown in Australia 12 months after he was deported over a vaccine-related visa dispute, however might now miss the match for a second-straight 12 months.
Djokovic limped off the court docket with a hamstring harm simply over half-an-hour right into a scheduled 75-minute apply match with Daniil Medvedev in a large scare for match organisers hanging their hat on his pursuit of a tenth Australian Open title.
It additionally places the nine-time winner’s sold-out showdown with Australian bombshell Nick Kyrgios in jeopardy, simply two days out from what was meant to be a blockbuster conflict between two of the game’s most polarising figures.
Djokovic’s harm places a severe cloud over the power of this 12 months’s draw, with a spate of retirements leaving the game bereft of extremely marketable expertise, regardless of Australian Open boss Craig Tiley’s weird feedback that this 12 months’s discipline is likely one of the strongest but.
Last 12 months’s winner Ash Barty shocked the world when she retired early final 12 months and leaves the Open with out a real native hope within the girls’s draw.
Serena Williams additionally retired after the US Open, her sister Venus handed again her wildcard entry and two-time winner Naomi Osaka will be part of them on the sidelines after a mysterious withdrawal.
Angelique Kerber can be among the many former Grand Slam champions not taking part in on the season’s first main.
Swiss legend and certainly one of Australia’s favorite stars, Roger Federer, left a gaping gap in males’s tennis when he walked away final 12 months and the person touted as the game’s subsequent massive factor, world No. 1 and US Open champion Carlos Alcaraz, is out injured.
“I’m also proud of the fact that this year is our best field,” Tiley claimed this week.
“As far as the entries go, every single player – we’ve had a few pull-outs as you know from injury but this is our best field we’ve had both on the men and the women.
“And I think it’s because a lot of the players are using their protected rankings from during COVID when they didn’t play as much.”
Djokovic’s sparring match with Medvedev ended after the Russian US Open winner claimed the primary set 6-4 in simply 36 minutes, with the hamstring tightness he battled with to win final week’s Adelaide International 1 nonetheless with him in Melbourne.
A physio labored on the 35-year-old’s proper knee in an effort to loosen the hamstring.
Djokovic first acquired therapy whereas main 3-2 and solely received one sport after that time, receiving the identical work once more at completely different factors within the lone set.
Spanish veteran Pablo Andujar stepped in for Medvedev, who’s now firming as one of many favourites for the match after final 12 months’s closing loss to Rafael Nadal.
